#24289 - Wyldcard - Sat Jul 31, 2004 9:06 pm
I have been going through the tutorials, and am stuck on the pcx2gba part of the process. I do not have Photoshop, so I am using an image convert program. I have the image at:
WIDTH 240
HEIGHT 160
COLOR 256
Every time I drag a .PCX image, and I have tried multiple different images. I get:
'stringfailed to open pcx file'
I do get code in the .h file, but it does not present an image when I run it through the rest of the process, and into VisualGameboyAdvance.
Is there an easier way to convert image files without having to buy some software?
Thanks in advance.
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#24295 - Wyldcard - Sun Aug 01, 2004 1:29 am
okay. I downloaded the latest version of the program, and it does not error. I still don't get the image. Has anyone else run into this?
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#24319 - Wriggler - Sun Aug 01, 2004 3:31 pm
Sounds to me like your pcx's are 16 million colours instead of 256. Lower the colour depth and give it another shot.
Ben
#24346 - Wyldcard - Sun Aug 01, 2004 9:38 pm
Wriggler,
Thanks :) I made sure it was 256, and it goes through the PCX2GBA program fine. When I then run the Make it also works. However when I run the test.elf, the screen flashes and goes back to black. I wonder if maybe it is too large in memory.
I moved on to another tutorial, and got BMP2GBA working, so I am all happy now :) I also downloaded the trial version of Photoshop, but it won't let me save any files :( Oooh well, if I get better and get things working in the future I may invest in that program. I just hate to spend money to buy something, and then never use it. I like to know it will work first, and then I don't mind buying it :)
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#24349 - dagamer34 - Sun Aug 01, 2004 10:01 pm
Download the trial version of Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8. I think it's more in your ballpark in terms of cost. (less than $99) And it does just about everything Photoshop does, if you put your mind to it at least... :)
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#24351 - Wriggler - Sun Aug 01, 2004 10:10 pm
| dagamer34 wrote: |
| Download the trial version of Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8. I think it's more in your ballpark in terms of cost. (less than $99) And it does just about everything Photoshop does, if you put your mind to it at least... :) |
I use PSP8. It's great, I prefer it to Photoshop 100 times over.
Glad I could help!
Ben
#24352 - dagamer34 - Mon Aug 02, 2004 1:33 am
| Wriggler wrote: |
| dagamer34 wrote: | | Download the trial version of Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8. I think it's more in your ballpark in terms of cost. (less than $99) And it does just about everything Photoshop does, if you put your mind to it at least... :) |
I use PSP8. It's great, I prefer it to Photoshop 100 times over.
Glad I could help!
Ben |
Photoshop gives too much power to users, when sometimes it is not needed. In fact, using Photoshop as a primary graphics tool is very hindering to the creation process as many graphics that are created use 4 or 8-bit palettes instead of 16 million colors.
PSP8 is a good program as it takes away most of the unneccessary functions that PhotoShop does (they can still be done through scripts), but still lacks palette editing functions. I use GraphicsGale to do my palette editing work, to fill in the holes where PSP8 is.... subpar.
Just my 2 cents! :)
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#24357 - Wyldcard - Mon Aug 02, 2004 4:36 am
| dagamer34 wrote: |
| Download the trial version of Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8. I think it's more in your ballpark in terms of cost. (less than $99) And it does just about everything Photoshop does, if you put your mind to it at least... :) |
Thanks :)
I will look into it.
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#24388 - dovoto - Mon Aug 02, 2004 8:27 pm
IF you are interested, day two of my tutor now includes a demo that loads a pcx from a binary and decodes it on the GBA. It also includes many of the methods for including binary data in your GBA program.
www.thepernproject.com
Keep in mind this is mainly a novelty to showcase both the inclusion of binary data and the decodeing of a simple file format. There are better image formats to use on the gba...specificaly ones that can be decompressed by bios rutiens.
-jason
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#24423 - Wyldcard - Tue Aug 03, 2004 3:07 pm
| dovoto wrote: |
IF you are interested, day two of my tutor now includes a demo that loads a pcx from a binary and decodes it on the GBA. It also includes many of the methods for including binary data in your GBA program.
www.thepernproject.com
Keep in mind this is mainly a novelty to showcase both the inclusion of binary data and the decodeing of a simple file format. There are better image formats to use on the gba...specificaly ones that can be decompressed by bios rutiens.
-jason |
Thanks :) I will look into it. I like this Jasc Paint Shop Pro. I need to read through the tutorials again, because the image is coming out all garbled from the PCX2GBA.
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#24427 - dagamer34 - Tue Aug 03, 2004 4:46 pm
| Wyldcard wrote: |
| dovoto wrote: | IF you are interested, day two of my tutor now includes a demo that loads a pcx from a binary and decodes it on the GBA. It also includes many of the methods for including binary data in your GBA program.
www.thepernproject.com
Keep in mind this is mainly a novelty to showcase both the inclusion of binary data and the decodeing of a simple file format. There are better image formats to use on the gba...specificaly ones that can be decompressed by bios rutiens.
-jason |
Thanks :) I will look into it. I like this Jasc Paint Shop Pro. I need to read through the tutorials again, because the image is coming out all garbled from the PCX2GBA. |
Make sure you are using a tile converter for sprites and tile-backgrounds, and not a bitmap converter. Try converting a 240x160 16-bit color bitmap and see if it displays correctly. If it does, then that is the problem.
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#24433 - Wriggler - Tue Aug 03, 2004 5:20 pm
...and also make sure your bitmap sizes are multiples of four. That tends to freak out the converters too :)
Ben
#24461 - Wyldcard - Wed Aug 04, 2004 2:59 am
| Wriggler wrote: |
...and also make sure your bitmap sizes are multiples of four. That tends to freak out the converters too :)
Ben |
Thanks :) I think it was an odd number. I will fix that, and try again.
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#24486 - Wyldcard - Wed Aug 04, 2004 3:08 pm
I am a little confused by one thing. Maybe I am missing something with the JASC program. I set the picture to WIDTH = 240, HEIGHT= 160, 256 colors 16-bit. However when I drag it on top of PCX2GBA the DOS window opens, and immediately closes with nothing coming out. Is there another option I need to set?
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#24491 - dagamer34 - Wed Aug 04, 2004 3:48 pm
| Wyldcard wrote: |
| I am a little confused by one thing. Maybe I am missing something with the JASC program. I set the picture to WIDTH = 240, HEIGHT= 160, 256 colors 16-bit. However when I drag it on top of PCX2GBA the DOS window opens, and immediately closes with nothing coming out. Is there another option I need to set? |
Check and see if it generated a .h file. It should have in the directory in which pcx2gba is located.
_________________
Little kids and Playstation 2's don't mix. :(
#24526 - Wyldcard - Thu Aug 05, 2004 4:18 am
| dagamer34 wrote: |
| Wyldcard wrote: | | I am a little confused by one thing. Maybe I am missing something with the JASC program. I set the picture to WIDTH = 240, HEIGHT= 160, 256 colors 16-bit. However when I drag it on top of PCX2GBA the DOS window opens, and immediately closes with nothing coming out. Is there another option I need to set? |
Check and see if it generated a .h file. It should have in the directory in which pcx2gba is located. |
Nope. I even hit F5 to refresh, and no .h file.
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#26442 - getch - Wed Sep 15, 2004 7:55 pm
I think this is because dovoto's program can't decode 16 color pcx's.
As a matter of fact, neither can I.
And I cant find proper method anywhere on the internet, even on z-softs own specifications.
16 color images are saved in 4 color planes, supposed to represent red, green, blue, intensity.
But i dont know why, because they are also supposed to reference the palette.
Does anyone know how to decode these images?
#26458 - tepples - Thu Sep 16, 2004 1:28 am
Color planes is similar to how EGA and VGA stored 16-color images.
First, familiarize yourself with the 2bpp planar tile storage format for Game Boy and Game Boy Color tiles. Then familiarize yourself with the 4bpp planar tile storage format used for Sega Master System tiles, which is the same thing with twice as many planes. Start in the Tile Molester documentation.
The PCX format is like the SMS format, except compressed with PCX RLE and not divided into tiles. Within each row of pixels is a compressed stream representing plane 0, plane 1, plane 2, and plane 3 for that line. - Image
- Header
- Line 0
- Plane 0
- Plane 1
- Plane 2
- Plane 3
- Line 1
- Plane 0
- Plane 1
- Plane 2
- Plane 3
- Line 2
- Plane 0
- Plane 1
- Plane 2
- Plane 3
- ...
Within each plane are pixels from left to right.
Example:
| Code: |
00011223 360069C0 <- Row of pixels
00011001 10000100 <- 1's place -> 19 84
00000111 11001000 <- 2's place -> 07 C8
00000000 01001010 <- 4's place -> 00 4A
00000000 00000110 <- 8's place -> 00 06
|
"Be conservative in what you emit and liberal in what you accept." PCX byte runs must never cross scanline boundaries. The spec says they shouldn't cross plane boundaries within a scanline either, but some programs emit them that way.
If you can't understand this well enough to display a 16-color .pcx, then just use converters that can translate from the more widely understood 16-color .bmp format.
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